By Caroline Briggs BBC News entertainment reporter

Instead of the usual suspects from politics and the media in the hot-seat, it was time for the BBC governors to get a grilling from the public.

Eleven of the BBC's 12 governors faced questions from 150 licence fee payers about how their money is spent in the debate at Television Centre in London on Tuesday evening.

The governors faced a 150-strong audience of licence-fee payers

This was their first chance to question the BBC about how it spent their £126.50 licence fee - and they were not going to waste a second of it.

They forcefully expressed views on issues ranging from impartial reporting in the Middle East to concerns about the new weather map.

Grumbles about repeats on BBC One thrown into the mix - along with a little Jerry Springer The Opera controversy for good measure - meant the stage was set for a lively debate.

London bombers

It was left to Breakfast presenter Sian Williams to weave her way through the audience with her microphone, often having to steer the increasingly impassioned spectators back to the question in hand.

Complaining about the weather map has overtaken complaining about the weather as the favourite national past-time Merfyn Jones, governor

Director general Mark Thompson was keen to assure the audience of the BBC's impartiality in reporting on the conflict in the Middle East, after some disgruntled calls of bias.

One audience member also asked the governors why the BBC had not "stood its ground" with the government over the Hutton inquiry.

Mr Thompson said: "Nothing is more important than the credibility and the political independence of the BBC.

"We are doing everything we can to make sure our journalism remains independent and reliable."

The BBC bosses also faced complaints about the high volume of repeats, with chairman Michael Grade saying he hoped peak-time BBC One and Two could be "repeat-free zones" within 10 years.

When told there had been nine hours of repeats on BBC Two on Tuesday, Mr Grade's comment that "my peak-time is not nine hours, I've peaked by then" was welcomed with laughter.

The public was invited to air views at Television Centre

Another lighter moment came from Mary Vickers who told the panel she lived in a house that could not receive digital television - because the trees around her house were too tall.

She explained she would need planning permission to erect the 13ft high pole needed to receive the signal.

Governor Fabian Monds reassured her "everything is being done" to help the "minority" of households that can not already receive digital television before analogue switch-off in 2012.

There were also gripes about Jerry Springer - The Opera, which received 47,000 complaints before it was screened in January, and 8,000 complaints afterwards.

Former ballerina Deborah Bull, who has been a BBC governor since 2003, defended the BBC's decision to screen the controversial musical, which depicted Jesus, God and Mary as talk show guests in Hell.

"It's not the governors' role to ban programmes before they are broadcast, but we did not ignore the strength of feeling," she said.

"We had to balance that with the BBC's duty to protect freedom of speech and innovation in the arts."

Map changes

Other questions fired at the panel were the lack of ethnic minority faces - especially black, professional women - in mainstream comedy and drama, and the well-worn controversy about the revamped BBC weather map.

Mr Thompson took the opportunity to admit that the weather map may face more changes.

He said the BBC would talk to sailors and fishermen to get their perspective on some of the issues.

"We have restored Scotland to its natural and proper size and we have restored the isobars," he said.

"We are also looking at getting the wind speeds back because we underestimated how many people wanted to see them."

A straw poll in the audience revealed not too many were concerned about the brown colouring which had raised hackles initially, and not many voting for a return to green.

But it was governor Merfyn Jones who summed it up nicely.

"Complaining about the weather map has overtaken complaining about the weather as the favourite national past-time," he said.